Saab sales 'bottom out'

Saab believes its sales have now bottomed out after production was halted for almost two months.

The firm was forced to stop production at its Trollhattan facility in Sweden over unpaid bills to suppliers. It was only able to resume output at the end of last week following a cash injection from Chinese distributor Pang Da.

Saab sold just 290 cars in its home market last month, a drop of 59 per cent year-on-year. But its Swedish chief, Magnus Hansson, said he believed Saab “hit the bottom in May in terms of sales and that we now, together with our distributors, can begin to work our way up again”.

Saab has now resumed its normal daily output of 218 cars a day, according to chairman Victor Muller, and it has outstanding orders for 8100 cars.

It has also been confirmed that Pang Da has ordered an additional 630 cars from Saab for 15 million euro (£13.2m) on top of the 1300 it paid 30m euro (£26.4m) for as part of it taking an equity stake in Saab’s parent firm Spyker.

The cars will be sold in China and be delivered from the third quarter.